But Lewis, who a week earlier handed Sam Long his first senior start and fielded Scott Davies in an unfamiliar left back role in the 1-1 draw at Morecambe, argued there were risks with whichever side he had selected.

He said: “Every time you pick a team there’s always something.

“Sometimes you gamble because you put a couple of young kids in and they do well.

“That’s the way it is, they both trained well this week and put themselves forward to play.

“They are both experienced players. Michael Raynes made a mistake for one of the goals and that just happens.”

The afternoon might have been very different had Johnny Mullins converted an excellent chance when the game was goalless.

Lewis rued the wasted opportunity, but had no complaints over the result as United had a hand in all three of Rochdale’s goals.

He said: “We could’ve gone a goal up, that might have been unfair on them.

“You try and get to half-time at 0-0 then and we just switched off at the throw-in.

“Everyone was determined in the second half to come out and try to turn it around, but we made a couple of mistakes.

“We gave the ball away and they scored on the counter-attack, which is something we had talked about in the week, because they are very good at it.”